For Want of a Rose
by Cerulean.Phoenix7
Summary: There's nothing more wicked than desire.
1. Into the Dark

For Want of a Rose

A/N: After watching the season finale I couldn't leave this unaddressed. This is my first Castle fic (though hopefully not the last ;)) This is from Castle's perspective during and after 'Knockout'.

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the supreme awesomeness that is Rick Castle, if I did I too would have a bullet-proof vest that says 'writer' on the back ;P

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><p>The glint catches his eye at a sharp angle, deep and skewing like a knife. He's learned never to ignore the bizarre; and a sinister silver glint amongst ivory and emerald tops his list of bizarre.<p>

His mother told him once that writers have eyes like ravens, they notice every detail but are easily distracted by anything with a metallic shimmer.

He remembers how a moment after she told him that he was distracted by a ray of sunlight blinking off a coin on the table.

But this is something of another nature entirely.

When he realises it, he doesn't think.

He _acts_.

He lunges out for Kate as a shot rings through the air, shrill like a scream.

"Kate!"

He falls on the ground next to her, his body partially overshadowing hers amongst the speckles of sunlight on the grass. His face is nestled along the curve of her shoulder and he pushes himself off the ground.

The he sees her face.

She's pale like a broken china doll, her face contoured with the stark purple of veins and wrinkles of fear. He looks down and sees the wound, blooming open on her chest like an angry crimson snap dragon. He feels his own heart pounding, his limbs feel heavy. Even though he's terrified he looks back to her face. Her eyes; rich pools of cocoa, are hooded but frantic.

She's searching for something.

"Kate," he whispers.

Her eyes stop on him.

"Stay with me Kate."

Something sputters from her lips, a mixture of a sob and whisper as he cups her face; her skin slips along his like ice, cold and damp against his palm. He wonders for an instant if she's melting.

But the red webs in her eyes say otherwise, it's the ultimate betrayal of her facade, but he doesn't give a damn.

His heart speeds up when her eyes droop a little more.

"Kate," he whispers again, but he trails off; there are words that he's afraid to say.

He's a writer; words are his medium that he moulds onto the canvas of his choosing. But Kate Beckett has never been the subject of another's control; she moulds her own medium that's marked with the neon steps of her determination.

Little bright lines.

Castle can only wonder how many times he's crossed those lines, and he's about to cross one again.

"I love you."

The words quiver on his tongue like wobbling crystals; dangerously close to breaking.

There's a slight stutter in his voice, distress stepping on his tongue between every word. He runs his thumb over her face, curling beneath her glassy tears before stopping at the corner of her lips.

"Shh," he whispers again, "It's gonna be okay. Kate, stay with me."

But there's a hiss of air that slithers past her lips; the faint echo of a sigh, and her eyes droop. Her body slumps into the ground, the bed of grass taking her and Castle holds onto her because he's afraid that the emerald bed will swallow her.

It's too early for there to be a white marker above her head.

He doesn't even notice when the paramedics arrive and try to move him aside, he grips Kate. He holds her as if some part of his life is slipping between his fingers, because in reality it is. She's been a constant in his life for the past few years, a link in the chain of his coherency.

Now his sensibility lies in shambles that clatter like bones at his feet.

Then she's not in his hands anymore, and something inside him breaks and floods him with pain. It's raw and bleeding, as if someone's just skinned his heart.

He slowly looks over to her in the arms of the meds, eyes closed like sleeping tulips, her mouth curved into the shadow of a smile. He brings a hand to his face as his eyes burn; his vision is blurry like the spatter of rain against a window. Then he feels a hand on his shoulder. Alexis, her own eyes are frightened and teary, clear lines mark out her pain on her face. He hugs her.

Then he sees his mother, who even behind the shroud of her obsidian sunglasses is endearing.

"Richard," she says as she nods towards the ambulance, "You should be with her."

He knows that she's right, there just wasn't enough left of him to submit to admittance.

He goes anyways.

He sits next to her in the ambulance, his hand curled around hers in the creepy ambiance of white and red. To Castle it screams _Memento Mori._

Amongst the wails of sirens and the brief exchanges between the meds Castle hears it, and for a moment he thinks that it's a dream amongst the chaos.

The he hears it again.

_Beep._

_Beep._

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><p>The doctors tell him two days after she goes through surgery, and it smacks him right across the face with such a blunt force that the air in his lungs seems to evaporate.<p>

She isn't going to wake up.

He wants to ask them _how_. As he curls his hand around hers, which is warm and creamy like honeysuckle, he wants to ask them how she can't wake up when he's there.

She _has_ to wake up, but he doesn't mean it in the sense of an order.

If anything, it's a fearful plea.

She has to wake up for him because he has so many things that he wants to tell her, so much yet to learn. He doesn't even know what her favourite colour is.

He grips her delicate hand a little tighter and bites at his lower lip, blinking at his eyes. He _needs_ her to wake up because he needs to see her smile and watch her blink those big brown eyes at him. He needs her in his life.

They offer him condolences, but they are no better than thin sheets of papyrus; flimsy and easily stolen by the wind. He craves reassurance, deep and warming like fire. He wants the hope to burn through him and incinerate the disease of doubt that's festering in him.

"What are her chances?" he asks.

"Mr. Castle," one of them says; his voice tinted with arrogance.

"Is it possible for her to wake up?" he asks with a little more force.

There's a sigh in the air, heavy and thick like fog.

"There have been rare cases where patients who have received this kind of trauma have regained consciousness, but those were one in thousands."

He looks at her face, a mural of serenity speckled with droplets of sunset and reaches his hand up to her face, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Then there is still hope," he whispers.

Something crackles inside him, embers churning in an abyss.

And under obsidian's shroud, there is a spark.

He looks over briefly to the crimson rose that he brought for her, nestled safely in the white vase by her bedside. He's always thought that there was value in simplicity.

He also thinks that there's more potency in his simplicity. The rose stands on its own, thorns protecting it but also betraying it. Nothing can touch it but also it cannot allow anything to touch it, the thorns rule out that possibility.

In regards to roses he's learned that all it requires is an ounce of caution and a deep reserve of patience. Navigate through the thorns carefully, and rush nothing.

It's a shame that thorns were never designed to withstand bullets.

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><p>It's ten days after she was first taken into the hospital that he gets the call.<p>

They've found _them_. The ones who shot her, the ones who almost killed her. They ask him to come along, and he only obliges because _she_ still hasn't woken up. She still rests under the canopy of monitors and white sheets.

His heart pounds in his ears as they race to the building, and when he sees it Castle knows that it's the place. There's something gaunt and ghastly about how the windows droop slightly and the doors hang off their hinges. There's the occasional shriek of a cat, and the smell of gasoline and something sourly rotten.

It's ideal in far too many ways.

But nothing in the past few weeks has been ideal.

As he steps out of the car, his heart is still pounding:

_thump thump thump_

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><p>The sun has already set when there's a stir of movement in her room. It's nothing significant, just the slight twitch of her eyebrow and the soft crinkle of her lips.<p>

Then she opens her eyes.

It frightens her at first, the sheer emptiness of the room and the dark, ominous potential of every nook and cranny. Colour has been robbed and she finds herself in front of an audience of black and white.

Then she sees the rose on her bedside table, and she feels the want for a presence that isn't there. She reaches for the assistance button to call a nurse and one appears a moment later.

"Ms. Beckett, you're awake. I'll get the doc-"

"No," she says, "Get me a phone, _now._"

"But Ms. Beckett, th-"

"I said get me a damn phone!"

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><p>He's left his phone in the car, and he never hears it ring. He's outside, only half-listening to the plan as the others nod. He's given a bullet proof vest, and then he sees it.<p>

He places his hand on it, trailing his fingers over the cool, smooth contours. He'd be lying if he said there wasn't something _appealing_ about it.

An officer with a face he doesn't recognise says to him: "If you're going in on this, you'll need one of those."

He looks to the man and then back to his hand, still resting on the black curves.

_She_ would have taken it without pause.

But there's an absence in the air, a vacancy of vibrancy. There's a lack of colour in the atmosphere and the supreme desire for a splash of life.

But something inside him has gone out, and all the embers have turned to ash.

And so it's for the want of a rose that he picks up a gun.

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><p><strong>Please review, reviews make my day :)<strong>


	2. Rise With the Dawn

A/N: Alright, so after the huge response that I got for the first part of this story (I swear I got at least 10 story alerts :P) I decided to make this a two-shot. And to those of you who reviewed/favourited/alerted, thank you :) And a big thanks to ab89us for reading over this for me and keeping my Castle facts straight :)

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><p>Something cracks sharply beneath his foot as he steps through the door, and he grinds his teeth together. There's myriad cobwebs everywhere, outlining the room in a ghostly sheen as the cops shine their lights through the cavernous room.<p>

It's like walking through a coffin meant for a giant.

_Fee Fi Fo Fum_, Castle thinks with a shiver. He never liked the giants in childhood fables; he never liked how their faces were always beyond the view of the narrator.

He likes knowing _what_ he's up against.

There's a creak of a floorboard above his head, and a quick shuffling as they wait for another sound. None comes. Esposito places one finger over his lips, motioning for silence.

Castle tiptoes behind the rest of the cavalry, his heart still pounding in his ears.

_thump thump thump_

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><p>The abrupt buzz of Ryan's phone in his pocket makes him jump slightly, and he doesn't like it. He's not one who likes to be caught off-guard, although he has a rather profound suspicion that no one really does.<p>

"Ryan," he answers the phone nonchalantly.

"Ryan, it's Beckett," comes the answer over the line, crisp like fresh grass.

"Beckett you're alright," he answers, "Glad to hear it."

"Listen Ryan I don't have time for simple talk. Castle isn't answering his phone and neither is Esposito."

"Yea, that's because they're both in on a raid right now."

"You let Castle go in on a raid?"

He has to hold the phone a few centimetres away from his ear for the sake of his ear drum.

"Beckett, listen to me, Castle is in there with a fully armed team. If anything happens he's got at least a dozen armed guns to cover his ass."

"Well you'd better hope that nothing happens to him or it'll be _your_ ass that I peg the blame on."

He chuckles slightly, "Will do." Then he hears her voice again; raised and slightly agitated, warbling like a falcon.

_"Will you just let me talk?"_

"Everything alright Beckett?"

"Fine, aside from these nurses who act like I'm going to fall into some sort of coma if I do anything. They're not letting me out of here either; otherwise I'd be down there at the raid."

"No, you need your rest Beckett," he answers.

She scoffs on the other end, "Yea, apparently you're not the only one who thinks that."

He smiles slightly.

"Keep me posted on Castle," she says.

"Yup, will do," he says and she hangs up.

He thinks that it probably wasn't her, but one of the nurses who'd finally managed to pry the phone from her grasp. It's a rather amusing image in his head, the idea of Beckett fighting with a nurse over a bright white phone.

Then there's a scuffle and some shouts, and the image is forgotten as he runs over the throng of officers forming around the building. There are whispers, hushed like crickets and jumbled about like bullets. There's enough of a voice amongst them all for him to hear what happened.

Someone saw _something_.

He looks up to the building, to the foggy windows and bleak walls, places where shadows hide and craft their mischief.

Behind him on the ground lies an invisible white lily, dead and forgotten.

It was never his anyways.

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><p>As the raid drew on, Castle had all but forgotten the presence of the flashlight in his hand.<p>

He has not, however, forgotten the gun. His fingers curve nicely over the smooth metal, cool and hard like ice. He likes the sensation, it's a distraction. It draws him away from the other sensations inside him, the dimples of rotten dreams on his heart.

It's also a distraction because he has to make sure that he doesn't shoot anybody, as he knows that there would be hell to pay for that.

There's a squeak beneath his feet and he curses the pliability of aged wood as Esposito turns and gives him a deathly glare.

_Now that_, Castle thinks, _is definitely a look that could kill._

Then there's a snap accompanied by a thousand more as bullets spray through the room and chaos' cavalry arrives. Flashes spike throughout the room, fiery bursts like imploding suns. Castle takes refuge behind some crates along with two other officers as the rain continues; it's torrential, like a hurricane fuelled by fury and malice. In a distant corner of his vision he sees a shadow, and then the shadow of a gun.

He's not the only one who sees it.

He's shoved aside, stumbling through darkness and thunder as the officers cover for him. His balance is gone though as he stumbles into what he believes (and sincerely hopes) is a wall.

Then it gives out on him.

He tumbles through the winding darkness, sharp corners and points jutting into his skin. He curses the bruises that will surely appear and blotch over his skin like weeds.

Then, he stops.

There's some momentary confusion while he regains his bearings; he can't find his gun. The absence of its feel in his palm is unnerving, a void devouring the space around his hand. He sees a slight glint of light bleeding around a corner just ahead of him, and of course curiosity calls him onward.

As it would to any writer.

He creeps around the corner, feeling rather audacious and sly. If only he had more black on he could pull off a ninja look.

Then he sees a series of monitors, set up neatly in rows facing a dark high-back chair. The chair is facing away from him and he wonders whether there is someone actually sitting in it or whether it is just there to inspire a little sweat on his brow.

But the image of his face on one of the monitors does all that and more. He feels any notion of audacity drain from his face as his heart pounds in his ear.

_thumpthumpthump_

Then the chair swivels, and a rather unpleasant man looks back at him; grey hair curling over the wrinkles on his face, bags carve out under his eyes. There are wrinkles around his lips and as he smiles Castle can see teeth, yellowed and dark from what he can only guess is years of smoking.

Cigars, the suicide medium for the wealthy. They could probably build their coffins out of money they had so much of it. He wasn't one for that; there were two things that he valued, his health and his bank account.

He gulps when he sees a gleaming silver revolver in the man's lap.

"So," he says with a bout of nonchalance, "It looks like the little sparrow fell out of the nest."

Castle's throat is too tight for him to make a witty retort.

The man picks up the revolver, light bouncing off it like angry stars as he circles him.

"Now," he says, "You seem rather... familiar."

Castle swallows thickly, his throat tight and his shoulders tense like a taught cord. He severely hoped that this man was just bluffing; if he has another hand up his sleeve Castle knows that he's in serious trouble.

The man circles him a few more times, and then stops in front of him, abruptly. His eyes are wide like saucers, spliced with shards of light.

"You were the one with Beckett at the funeral."

_Shit._

"Ah yes, you're the 'plucky sidekick' as the saying goes."

_It's usually the plucky sidekick that gets killed_, Castle thinks with an internal shudder as he recalls Kate's words.

The man clicks the safety off on the revolver and it sounds as loud as a cannon.

Castle's shoulders jump slightly.

The man looks to his weapon and then back to Castle, "Well, as they also say," he brings the weapon up to Castle's face, "Two, for the price of one."

Castle shuts his eyes.

_At least she knows_, he thinks.

Then there's a shot, it's loud and shakes the entire room. The sound quakes through the air and then fades. Castle slowly opens his eyes and notices something.

He's not dead.

The man is; the one with greying hair and teeth yellow like the skin of a ripe banana. He lies in the floor, crimson spreading onto his chest.

Castle turns around and sees Esposito, his gun raised and brow set. Then he walks forward a looks at the man on the floor, his skin the colour of ash.

Esposito lowers his gun and looks at Castle, "You're a lucky man Castle."

"This time," he says.

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><p>They send him to the hospital early in the morning for the sake of protocol, as if a simple check-up by someone in a white coat will help some official sleep better at night.<p>

Castle knows it won't do the same for him.

It's like walking through a hall of mirrors, but all that they ever reflect are the stolen moments and lost dreams of another life, caught up in the wind like the fluff of fading dandelions.

The look him over, ask him the occasional question and he barely responds; actually he can't even remember if he _did_ respond or not. His mind was somewhere else entirely during the whole thing, because here is the absolute last place that he wants to be.

They clear him and he shuffles away. His eyes look to the floor and the repeating pattern of the tiles. It made him think of a particular rhyme:

_Don't step on a crack or you'll fall and break your back_.

Seems like his back isn't what's broken.

It's probably some wicked coincidence that _her_ room is on his way out. He's not entirely sure why he stops and goes to peek in; maybe it's some sort of needed closure.

Maybe it's something else entirely.

He peeks his head in, half expecting to see her lying there, still like a marble sculpture.

Instead he sees her sitting with a book settled in her lap, her back propped up on several pillows. For a moment he just stands there, flabbergasted beyond any notion of sense. She's so immersed in her book that she doesn't notice him staring.

He steps fully into the doorway and says: "Kate?"

She looks up quickly, and a smile slowly curves over her face: "Hey Castle."

The next moment blurs and then he realises that he's hugging her, holding her tightly because he's so relieved that she's alive and that he still has time.

It's as if destiny's turned the hourglass so that the sand stands in mountains and not in ruins.

"Kate," he whispers softly into her hair as her arms wrap around his shoulders, "I thought you were gone."

She chuckles slightly, "No, not quite Castle."

He sighs softly, "Thank God."

They're like that for a few more moments; just enjoying the presence that they both thought was lost. Then he lets her go and sits next to her bed as she smiles at him.

"So," she says, 'You made it out of the raid alright, glad to know that I don't have to be around to save your ass all the time."

He chuckles, "No, and as I recall that's not part of your job description."

She smiles softly, "Well... I never thought that lunging to save a cop was part of a writer's job description either. But you still did, Castle. You would have taken that shot for me. Thank you."

He frowns slightly, "But you were still the one who took the bullet."

"Castle," she says, "Possibly being shot kinda comes with the job."

"Kate you almost died," he says with a bit of strain in his voice. He sees her face soften.

"I thought you were gone," he whispers, "I went on the raid for _you_, I wanted to do you justice," he leans back in his chair, "Instead I almost got myself shot."

Her face crumples slightly and she looks at him, her eyes pained slightly but what he said. She reaches her hand slowly towards where his sits on the edge of her bed and curls her fingers over his. Her eyes pierce through his, deep and loving.

"Castle," she says gently, trying to broach something that was probably difficult for the both of them, "After I was shot at the funeral, you were there. You begged me to stay with you; you have no idea how much I wanted to."

He looks at her hand on his and then back at her.

"Did you notice that I tried to smile when you said that you loved me? It was because I was thinking 'it's true'."

She purses her lips slightly, "All this time I've been wondering if there is something there because it felt like there was but I didn't want to cross the line."

He grips her hand slightly.

"But you did that for me."

A smile curves over his lips.

"I may not be perfect Kate," he says, "I don't pretend to be. But that's one of the things about relationships, you work through the differences."

She strokes her thumb over his hand, soft and smooth like a rose petal.

"I'm not perfect either Castle. I try too hard, do too much, and I don't let go very easily because I need something to hold onto."

There's a glimmer in her eye, but it's only there for a moment, "But maybe, you and I could meet in the middle somewhere, and find our own version of perfect."

He cups her face with his other hand and she leans against it slightly, sunlight dripping in over her face.

"It'll be an adventure," he says with a drop of sarcasm.

She scoffs and then laughs, "When is something not an adventure with you?"

He smiles, "All I'm missing is the whip and satchel and my look would be complete."

She chuckles: "Don't push it Castle."

_Fin_

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><p><strong>That's all folks, please leave a review :D<strong>


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